


Still Breathing

by lovelyleias



Series: Alien Aesthetic [4]
Category: Alien (1979), Alien Series, Alien: Isolation (Video Game), Aliens (1986)
Genre: Character Study, I'm so happy that she got to live a long life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7815442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyleias/pseuds/lovelyleias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda Ripley never stopped hoping, never stopped looking, never stopped fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Amanda's accompanying graphic is [here](http://lovelyleias.tumblr.com/post/146472535117/alien-aesthetic-amanda-ripley-she-is-five-years).

She is five years old the first time her mother goes away for work _(“Don’t worry Amy, a week isn’t long at all”)_. She’s seven the first time her mother’s flight is extended _(“Six months will pass before you know it”)_. She’s ten when her mother doesn’t come back _(“I won’t miss your birthday this year, I promise”)_. Amanda learns quickly how little value promises hold, even when they are made by someone who means to keep them. She spends her childhood being passed around by relatives with tenuous blood ties, and counts the years, the days, the minutes until she turns eighteen.

She tears her way through her education, and into a job that is suited to her inherited talents. She never stops searching, waiting, hoping. And finally, an opportunity presents itself.

Sevastopol is cold and dark. The shadows cast on the wall take ominous shapes, and every sound she hears causes a shiver of fear to crawl down her spine. Her whole body hurts, and the flamethrower slips around precariously in her sweat-soaked hands.

“Come on,” she gasps raggedly. “Come on.”

One of the aliens stalks around the corner. She takes a risky look behind her; the EVA chamber is only steps away. She makes eye contact with the creature. _One step back_. It hisses and stomps towards her. _Two steps back_. She raises the flamethrower, and it halts. _Three steps back._ She raises a finger to the trigger. _Four steps back._ The creature opens its jaws. _Five steps back._ Amanda pulls her finger back, and the trigger clicks hopelessly. A wave of nausea sweeps over her: she’s out of fuel. _Six steps back._ She tosses the useless weapon aside and steps into the chamber. She can hear screams as the door closes; a twisted harmony of human and alien voices.

Much later, when she looks back on Sevastopol, she has a difficult time fitting everything neatly into twenty-four hours. It should be impossible, that an event so huge had taken place in under a day. There became a point that day, towards the end, where she expected death to come for. Instead of _if_ she began to wonder _how_. But despite her fear, she never stopped fighting.

It because of this that she does survive. She gets forty more years to live and love and cry and laugh. She gets a job to challenge her. She gets a wife to hold her. She gets to live, live, live; such a simple concept and yet nearly unimaginable to her. 

And when her time is up, Amanda Ripley steps into the darkness, unafraid.


End file.
